Advent Appreciation: Challenges

Advent Appreciation: Challenges

Throughout Advent, we’ll be sharing reflections on the day’s readings written by a few of our Sisters. Each will share something she is thankful for during this season of preparation, that is, her Advent Appreciation. Share your own #AdventAppreciation with us on Facebook orTwitter!

Today’s Advent Appreciation: Challenges

December 19, 2017 – Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent

Remember a time when you grappled with one of the most challenging issues you have faced in your life. One that defined you as a person … as an insider or outsider … as a success or failure. One that may have caused profound doubt about the faith you have embraced for as long as you can remember.

This was what confronted Elizabeth and Zechariah in today’s Gospel. They lived in a highly patriarchal society where having offspring, especially male heirs, was the definition of success, of being in “God’s favor” or not. They must have been consumed with anguish over what they probably interpreted as “failure.”

So along comes an angel who speaks to Zechariah and says simply, “Don’t be afraid.” God is going to take care of this issue for you. And so it goes, and it was done.

Doesn’t that seem so simple, so straight-forward, and to many people too ridiculous to believe? So what is your issue? And what will it take for us to wait patiently for the voice of an angel … a friend… a spiritual director … to allow us to trust in God’s care for us?